Problems of Digital Identity

• Do digital technologies facilitate escapist behaviour?

Consider, in the case of the Mp3 player, the comment of Keisha, a twenty-year-old college student:

I use [my Mp3 player] everyday. I have the remote for it, so I lie in bed, and press play, and it comes on in the morning. And then when I walk to school, I use it to walk to school, and then, walking home, and I also have it on as background when I’m cleaning or something… I fall asleep listening to it through my speakers…I don’t like silence…I like to have something going on constantly, I think I might just sit there and think, and if I think too much, ahh, I don’t like it, I just like to get on with things.

Q: So it keeps you from thinking?

A: Not keeps me from thinking, but keeps me from thinking about things that I don’t want to think about…It distracts me.

Keisha’s listening routine points to just how constantly connected many Digital Natives are throughout their daily lives. Her invoking of a continual soundtrack to avoid unpleasant thoughts point to the possibilities of this digital media to serve as an escape. By filling in all time and sound with music, natives may ignore problems they face by squeezing out any challenging or unpleasant thoughts. However, the media decry after the explosion of the iPod market of ‘tuned-out’ kids, no longer paying attention to the world they live in, is an exaggeration of both the way Mp3 players are being used, and the power of the object to be responsible for young people’s inattention. Such panics are also reminiscent of past generation-gap related concerns. The above exploratory study showed that in fact, users are very aware of the different ways and levels to which they immerse themselves in the music playing in their Mp3 players. Users purposely navigate their level of attention to surroundings, and their level of ‘presence’ in different environments.

Nevertheless, it remains important to note the abilities that the Mp3 player, as well as other digital media, gives to its users to escape their f2f (face2face) lives and concerns. This is not to say that it is the digital media that is encouraging this escapist behaviour, but that the emergence of a generation with a capability to be so constantly connected provides a new, and perhaps better facilitating medium through which escapist behaviour can be pursued.

• Who owns and controls the interactive platforms that Digital Natives are personalizing, modifying, and creating identities in? See also Portal:Digital Creativity